Is data from PubMed and Crossref always reliable?

Modified on: Fri, May 12, 2017 at 10:16 AM

The short answer is, it's complicated.

An important distinction between PubMed and Crossref is how extensively these two organizations curate the data submitted to them: Crossref explicitly relies on the accuracy of publisher-submitted metadata, whereas PubMed carries out extensive internal QA. Unfortunately, this means that Crossref records are not always as accurate as PubMed records. Because of this distinction, Edifix is more likely to insert a warning about differences between submitted references and Crossref records, whereas it is more likely to simply correct differences from PubMed records.

To check the accuracy of a reference in the PubMed or Crossref database, click on the PMID or DOI link that is returned with the reference. You can help improve metadata accuracy for everyone! If you come across a record in PubMed that contains verifiable errors relative to the published article, contact PubMed Help. If you come across an error in the Crossref database, contact Crossref Support.